Dan'l Lewin, VP of Strategic and Emerging Business Development for Microsoft, talks to the recipients of the Microsoft Imagine Cup Award about kick-starting ideas and seeing their plans become a reality.
Microsoft Imagine Cup Award Recipients

Dan'l Lewin

Dan'l Lewin is responsible for leading Microsoft's global engagement with startups and venture capitalists and business relationships with strategic industry partners. Dan'l’s teams focus on supporting the startup and entrepreneur ecosystem developing on the Microsoft platform while helping foster local software economies worldwide. Through the Microsoft BizSpark and Microsoft Innovation Center programs, the groups help accelerate startup success in more than 100 countries. Dan'l also has executive and site responsibility for the company's operations in Mountain View, California, which currently employ more than 2,500 people. Dan'l has spent more than 30 years in Silicon Valley as an executive leading sales and marketing divisions for companies including Apple Computer Inc., NeXT Inc. and GO Corp. Before joining Microsoft, he was CEO of Aurigin Systems Inc., a startup that pioneered intellectual property asset management. He has also consulted for emerging companies, venture capital firms and corporate joint ventures. Dan'l serves on the boards of the Churchill Club; SVForum; and the Tech Museum of Innovation, where he served as past chairman of the Tech Museum Awards program. In addition, Dan'l is on the Corporate Advisory Board of the National Venture Capital Association. He holds an A.B. in politics from Princeton University.

Imagine Cup Grant winner Hon Weng Chong details the challenges in developing StethoCloud, a digital stethoscope and low-cost diagnostic tool, which included finding backers that were willing to take a risk.